Profiles

Andrea Wan may seem introverted but the work of this Vancouver-based illustrator is nothing close to shy. Having worked with a slew of notable publications like Nylon and The Globe and Mail as well as participated in numerous gallery shows, Andrea is mustering up a portfolio desirable by any young and budding illustrator.

Two things about Montreal artist Dave Arnold: A) He is hilarious, and B) He doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. In an attempt to avoid this, he’s currently working under the alias Mr. Sign, and is bringing a new face to many storefronts in an old way: by hand-painting signs for businesses eager to recreate that old nostalgic charm. He also has a collection of paintings titled “Teenage Nudes,” consisting of Betty and Veronica from Archie comics posing in the nude. “It seemed like a decent idea,” he says, laughing.One commonality within all of Dave’s work is his rampant penchant for nostalgia.

The phrase, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is usually tossed off as an overused cliché. But when it comes to Tristram Lansdowne, it’s not uncommon to have a change of heart. Suddenly, such statements lose their banality once associated with someone so down to earth. This 26-year-old Toronto resident (via Victoria) seeks out the decayed and dilapidated edifices in the outskirts of his town with the intentions of preserving them on canvas in the form of watercolour paintings.

Strewn around the backyard of an old bank in Montreal, propped up against trees, are used mattresses decorated with serene, sleeping, naked bodies. And they are captivating and catching the eyes of galleries, art bloggers and casual passersby across the country. The man behind these works is Winnipeg native Brian Hunter, who, at 24, fled the country to explore Asia after his efforts at making a full-time living off of his art seemed fruitless, and a need to see the world took hold.

Jeremy Shaw first gained notoriety for dosing his friends with the powerful hallucinogen DMT. He recorded the results for an eight-screen installation that was shown in galleries around the world. His most recent work is a poster campaign in Vancouver that started last March. Since then, 25 different designs have decorated the city’s lamp posts with iconic and infamous imagery from Expo 86.

Andrew Pommier does a lot of things. He skateboards, he listens to T.I., he eats porridge, but most notably he does art. If any of Andrew’s work looks familiar, it’s because it probably is. Though Andrew’s roots are in skateboard art, he has done graphics for a number of different companies from the likes of Adidas to RVCA to Stüssy to Zune, and is also a successful gallery artist. ION recently got to hang out and have a chat with Andrew at his studio.

Nothing about 25-year-old Vancouver artist Robert Mearns is ordinary. For starters, note that Robert is pushing the six-foot-five mark dramatically, complete with a wild mane of spectacular hair. And just in case that didn’t make him conspicuous enough, he’s got the head of a deer tattooed defiantly across his chest. Ordinary is not in Robert’s vocabulary, nor his DNA for that matter—and this trend follows into his work.

At first glance, Sarah Joncas’ paintings of pouty, buxom damsels in distress seem like intense glimpses into the mysterious mind of a tortured Robert Smith-infatuated artist. But the reality is quite the opposite: Sarah’s artwork really reflects her love of pop surrealism, dichotomy and subjects that provoke a second look. Whatever her inspiration may be, it’s obviously working as Sarah who, at 22, has already had multiple showings in L.A.’s Thinkspace Gallery, including her recent series called “Beneath the Seams.”

The street and the gallery are two diverse domains for an artist’s work, each with their own set of benefits and drawbacks. Many street artists today have successfully established a place for themselves in each of these domains. Canadian Troy Lovegates aka Derek Mehaffey aka Other is one of these highly skilled artists. Troy Lovegates began painting on the streets around 1988 after noticing graffiti on the buildings in Toronto that would magically appear overnight.

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Thank you for an awesome interview! It was very good and absolutely needed. I've missed The Radio Dept. I remembering standing a bit up from the scene where they were playing in Arvikafestivalen 2003, I was 18. Every Radio Dept song was like the best sex, most profound political stance and pride. I am from Karlstad, Sweden.